Special Circumstances

Startup by Jerry Kaplan

There is a notion of capitalism involving a competition between companies and the best, most innovative products lead to profits. Even before Microsoft publicists bastardized the term 'innovation' there was little novelty tolerated in the computer industry.

Jerry Kaplan tells his story of a high-tech Silicon Valley startup from the inception of the idea to the final gasps when the venture capital dries up and bigger fish in the fond swallow up parts of their company. The book chronicles the rise and fall of his startup company, Go Inc. This was a company that wanted to produce the first handheld computer that would be entirely operated by a pen device. While the company failed, the idea of a pen-based device and the actual technology that was developed at Go found it's way into a future generation of successful devices like the Palm from 3COM and the Microsoft rival WinCe (or the Pocket PC).

The story begins with Kaplan's weekly visit to his PhD advisor Aravind Joshi at the University of Pennsylvania. It sets the tone for the rest of the book, which is told in a similar light-hearted vein (for a tragedy, which is what this is). Some personal details creep in as is common in this kind of autobiographical business story.

The story is told in such a good-hearted manner with little greed in evidence (apart from the usual ambition to succeed) that even those who hate the genre of CEO hagiography and myth will find things to like in this book.

%T Startup
%A Jerry Kaplan
%I Penguin Books
%D 1994
%G ISBN: 0140257314 (pb)
%P 322
%K business, computer-science

Review written: 2002/02/22